OpenJournalAdmin: API documentation

2026-09-10T19:58:28Z

API documentation

New page

openjournal is MediaWiki, so it has MediaWiki's APIs — nothing here is bespoke, and
anything true of the [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/API:Main_page MediaWiki API] is
true here.

Cross-origin reads are allowed, so you can call these straight from a browser — but
MediaWiki only sends the CORS headers when you ask for them, so add
'''<code>&origin=*</code>''' to any <code>api.php</code> request you make from
another site. <code>rest.php</code> needs no such parameter.

Articles are subpages of their author: '''<code>User:Alice/Some title</code>'''. That
means "everything Alice wrote" is a title-prefix query.

== The friendly routes ==

For the common case -- get someone's posts, get one post -- these read better than
the MediaWiki API underneath them, which is all they are: Apache rewrite rules onto
the exact same <code>api.php</code> and <code>action=render</code> this page
documents further down, not a second API to keep in sync.

<pre>
GET /users/{username}/posts all of a user's posts, alphabetical by title
GET /users/{username}/posts/{title} one post: title, wikitext, last-edited time
GET /users/{username}/posts/{title}?format=html the same post, rendered to HTML
GET /users/{username} redirects to their journal (browsable)
</pre>

<code>{title}</code> is the part after the slash, with spaces as underscores, e.g.
<code>/users/Alice/posts/Laying_a_hedge</code> for
<code>User:Alice/Laying a hedge</code>.

A post that doesn't exist behaves differently depending on the format: with
<code>?format=html</code> you get a real <code>404</code>. Without it -- the default,
plain JSON -- you always get <code>200</code>, with <code>"missing":true</code> in the
body instead. That form is calling <code>api.php</code> underneath, and there is no
way to make MediaWiki's own API answer with a different HTTP status without writing
code, which
this project avoids. Check <code>missing</code> if that matters to you.

== All articles by one user (the underlying MediaWiki call) ==

Same data the <code>/users/{username}/posts</code> route above returns, and where
its extra parameters -- excerpts, URLs -- come from, if you want to add your own.

<pre>
GET /api.php?action=query&list=allpages&apnamespace=2&apprefix=Alice/&format=json
</pre>

== One article, as HTML ==

<pre>
GET /rest.php/v1/page/User%3AAlice%2FSome_title/html
</pre>

== One article, as source ==

<pre>
GET /rest.php/v1/page/User%3AAlice%2FSome_title
</pre>

== Every article on the site, newest first ==

<pre>
GET /api.php?action=query&generator=recentchanges&grcnamespace=2&grclimit=30&format=json
</pre>

== Excerpts and lead images, for a card or a feed ==

<pre>
GET /api.php?action=query&prop=extracts|pageimages&exchars=300&explaintext=1&titles=User:Alice/Some_title&format=json
</pre>

== An Atom feed of everything ==

<pre>
GET /index.php?title=Special:RecentChanges&feed=atom&namespace=2
</pre>

One author's feed is the same URL narrowed with <code>&tagfilter=</code> or, more
simply, poll <code>list=allpages</code> above.

== Writing from your own code ==

Editing over the API uses the same login you use in the browser, which is Wikimedia
OAuth — so a script writes by acting as you through an
[https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:OAuthConsumerRegistration owner-only OAuth
consumer], not by sending a password. Bot passwords are switched off here for the
same reason.

See [[OpenJournal:API/Recipes]] for worked examples, or the full parameter reference
at [[Special:ApiHelp/query]] — it is generated from this wiki's own installed modules,
so it is never out of date.

OpenJournal:API - Revision history

OpenJournalAdmin: API documentation